Strange Award Banquet

[Trailrite@aol.com]

	I encountered a strange thing this last weekend at a ride and wanted to share
this and find out if anyone else has experience this same encounter.  I've
been riding endurance off & on since the late 70's and I had 3 generations in
this ride.  My husband, daughter, grandson & myself.
	This ride was the most well marked, organized ride that I've been to in a
long time.  The people were helpful and very friendly.  BUT, when all was done
and we were all gathered for the banquet and awards everything fell apart!
Now I don't really know what happened, but the audience was loud and not
paying attention at all.  No one seem interested in the names being called
out.  You couldn't even hear the names being called, it was so loud.  We had
about 6 in our group, we tried to start an encouragement for clapping by
clapping for what names we could here.  Finally we gave up after clapping for
at least 20 names called.  Still no one was interested.   What was going on
here?
	My grandson, (9 years old) was bouncing up and down just waiting for his name
to be called.  We either never could hear it or it was skipped.  So we went up
and asked for his name to be called again.  They did, with no problem.  We
made such a grand noise that we thought there for a moment, we got the crowd
going now!  But as soon as the next name was called everything went back to
the same rudeness of indifference.  I felt sorry for the management and the
people that were there for some sort of hype.  When people and horses work all
day for this moment, wouldn't you think that others could just give them that
reconitition for at least that hour?  There was a lot of new riders in the 25
miler, maybe they didn't know any better.  But you would think they would be
into the awards more than any other rider.  We finaly all got up and walked
away, disappointment was turning into anger.  We don't know if it was new
riders or experienced riders, but it was very strange.
Tammy Robinson & Family